Getting Goxed: Mt. Gox’s U.S. bankruptcy and hacker attack

Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, center, is escorted as he leaves the Tokyo District Court on Feb. 28. Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy in the United States on Monday, following a similar filing in Japan. (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg)

Furious about your Mt. Gox losses? You’ll have to cool your heels.

U.S. legal actions against Mt. Gox — notably a lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court that sought class-action status — are on temporary hold after the bitcoin exchange submitted a bankruptcy filing in Dallas late Sunday.

“It’s time that MTGOX got the bitcoin communities’ wrath instead of Bitcoin Community getting Goxed,” an anonymous hacker wrote.

So on the downside, Mt. Gox has imploded. On the upside, it’s vaulted into the echelons of companies whose names became common verbs. Of course, being synonymous with total flakiness is not something most CEOs aspire to.

Believe it or not, getting “goxed” first showed up in Urban Dictionary almost three years ago after a spate of Mt. Gox closures and trading delays, but it’s caught fire in the past couple of weeks.